I. Field
The following description relates generally to wireless communications, and more particularly to improving transmission throughput in a wireless communication environment.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication; for instance, voice and/or data may be provided via such wireless communication systems. A typical wireless communication system, or network, can provide multiple users access to one or more shared resources. For instance, a system may use a variety of multiple access techniques such as Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM), Time Division Multiplexing (TDM), Code Division Multiplexing (CDM), and others.
Common wireless communication systems employ one or more base stations that provide a coverage area. A typical base station can transmit multiple data streams for broadcast, multicast and/or unicast services, wherein a data stream may be a stream of data that can be of independent reception interest to a user device. A user device within the coverage area of such base station can be employed to receive one, more than one, or all the data streams carried by the composite stream. Likewise, a user device can transmit data to the base station or another user device.
As user devices are improved with regard to processor speed, memory space, transceiver power and/or sensitivity, so does device capability exceed previous versions of respective user devices. However, older, less capable user devices that are still in circulation require support as well. An issue then arises with respect to efficiently supporting existing legacy user devices while concurrently providing support for newer, more capable devices and permitting such devices to fully exploit their functionality.
Therefore, a need exists in the art for systems and methods that overcome the afore-mentioned deficiencies and facilitate accommodating a wide variety of user device types and capabilities in a wireless communication environment in order to improve system throughput and enhance user experience.